Colleges Push to Lower Legal Drinking Age to 18

mykevermin

mykevermin

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http://www.amethystinitiative.org/

Signed "universities" (via their president) number over 120, and include Duke University, Johns Hopkins University, and Ohio State University.

Thoughts?

I haven't read enough of this to understand the motivation of the universities, but it evidently has something to do with reducing binge drinking amongst younger college students. I don't know that this would have a large, direct effect. But I don't know the research.
 
If this stops binge drinking amongst younger college students, the drinking age should be reduced to 14 to reduce binge drinking amongst older high school students. After that, the drinking age should be reduced to 10 to reduce binge drinking amongst younger high school students. And so on and so on.

Kids are going to drink. The only thing stopping them is proper parenting and the development of common sense.
 
I think there should just be 1 universal age for everything.

When you're 16, you can operate a vehicle but not allowed to buy ciggs?
When you're 17, you can get into an R rated movie but you can't buy a playboy?
At 18, you're now an "adult" and can be convicted as one..yet, you can't help yourself to a beer?

It just seems silly to me.
I think 18 should be a universal age for driving, drinking, voting and everything else. If you are considered an adult at 18, then EVERYTHING that comes with being an adult should be granted to you.

/2 pennies
 
[quote name='lilboo']I think there should just be 1 universal age for everything.

When you're 16, you can operate a vehicle but not allowed to buy ciggs?
When you're 17, you can get into an R rated movie but you can't buy a playboy?
At 18, you're now an "adult" and can be convicted as one..yet, you can't help yourself to a beer?

It just seems silly to me.
I think 18 should be a universal age for driving, drinking, voting and everything else. If you are considered an adult at 18, then EVERYTHING that comes with being an adult should be granted to you.

/2 pennies[/QUOTE]

I agree.
 
It should be 18. I think driving should be left at 16, but otherwise I agree with lilboo that you should get all these rights and privileges when you officially become an adult.

I think it would help reduce underage college, binge drinking a bit. Being illegal adds to the appeal some, but I don't think it would have a huge impact. I also don't think a lower age would cause a spike among high school drinking. That's more in the parents control and the kids drinking will be the kids with lax parents who are binge drinking with the age at 21.
 
[quote name='RAMSTORIA']
I think there should just be 1 universal age for everything.

When you're 16, you can operate a vehicle but not allowed to buy ciggs?
When you're 17, you can get into an R rated movie but you can't buy a playboy?
At 18, you're now an "adult" and can be convicted as one..yet, you can't help yourself to a beer?

It just seems silly to me.
I think 18 should be a universal age for driving, drinking, voting and everything else. If you are considered an adult at 18, then EVERYTHING that comes with being an adult should be granted to you.

/2 pennies
Click to expand...
I agree.[/quote]

Same here.
 
you can go off fight and die for your country, but you can't have a beer in it before you are deployed. Something just never made sense about that.
 
I find it shocking that common sense is being applied when uni presidents could just appeal to the LALALLA NOT LISTENING ALCOHOL KILLS arguement, as my alma mater does.

Also, this is political poison.
 
No, even driving should be raised. Sure what's 2 years more? Maybe not much, but driving is a huge responsibility and I just hate when people turn 16 and they are like ZOMG CAR and end up killing someone the first week.. :lol: All jokes aside, I dont think some people take driving very seriously..and that's something that needs to be considered.

Again, there's too many in between things from ages 16-21 that's just silly to not be able to do all at once.
 
The "official" explanation I have heard is that the brain is not fully developed until someone reaches the age of 21. Although I can understand these good intentions, I think that 18 makes more sense given the stages in life that people go through (including the other things you can do at various ages, as noted above). Having the legal age at 21 does not stop most people from underage drinking anyway. Education and social stygma have been fairly effective with reducing smoking, so I think it would make sense to go the same route with drinking: lower the age to 18, but explain the rationale for waiting. Most people won't, but they should be able to make their own decisions once they are legally "adults" for most other things.

But let's face it, these university people are doing this purely for their own self-interest because they want to rid themselves of the headache of dealing with "illegal" activity on their campus and by students. Binge drinking will occur regardless of the legal drinking age, but the university people think they can escape responsibility for it if drinking is a "legal" activity.
 
[quote name='lilboo']No, even driving should be raised. Sure what's 2 years more? Maybe not much, but driving is a huge responsibility and I just hate when people turn 16 and they are like ZOMG CAR and end up killing someone the first week.. :lol: All jokes aside, I dont think some people take driving very seriously..and that's something that needs to be considered.

Again, there's too many in between things from ages 16-21 that's just silly to not be able to do all at once.[/QUOTE]

I think it's important to have driving begin while people are still living at home, in school not able to buy a car for themselves etc. They'll get more training and restrictions on their driving from their parents (at least kids form decent homes) vs. just turning 18, being on their own etc.

Plus people start working and 16 or 17 and having a car is often a need here. So I disagree with raising that age to 18. But I agree the other things should all be 18, drinking, voting, military, R-rated movies, cigarettes, porn etc.
 
Hmm. That 1983 JLS citation makes me wonder. I'd like to skim over the actual study, which I'm sure just did a crosstab-style comparison of states with lower and higher drinking ages, and found a higher incidence of alcohol-related auto accidents in those with lower.

But a 28% drop is really overstating the case. I have no hangups in saying that.
 
[quote name='lilboo']No, even driving should be raised. Sure what's 2 years more?[/QUOTE]

I hope you have kids someday as you'll be changing your tune soon enough. Gah I'm glad as an adult I didn't turn into a prick. I may not be able to relate to kids as much but I'm not estranged enough from what I remember as a kid to try to fuck over their driving age.
 
If the driving age was increased to 18, I would have been in college yet not have been able to drive a car (currently 20). fuck that. Otherwise I agree with lilboo.
 
[quote name='Ikohn4ever']you can go off fight and die for your country, but you can't have a beer in it before you are deployed. Something just never made sense about that.[/QUOTE]

This.................
 
[quote name='Heavy Hitter']If the stats are correct, maybe it's not such a good idea to lower the drinking age:

http://reason.com/news/show/128200.html[/quote]
I really would like to dispute this article.
While, it is factual, it's still not telling the whole story.

No shit drinking related car accidents, and alcohol related deaths are going to go up when you lower it to 18, BUT, in my humble opinion, only in the short term. I think once we get past the short term affects of lowering the drinking age, more good than harm will come out of it. Society won't see it as a "forbidden fruit" anymore, and this will, in theory, make it less desirable for youth to binge drink, etc.

Also, in the article, it mentioned somewhere that 16 year olds will start drinking more since 18 year olds will have access to it. While, again, this may be true in the short term, I really don't think it's going to be that big of an increase. As a senior in high school, I have to say this is almost complete BS. I mean, I know a lot of people who drink, smoke, etc., but most of the people I know who do didn't start until they were 17 or so. While I do know people who started drinking and stuff much younger, like 14, the majority of people didn't start until their later years in high school.
 
If this happened, I would like to see them lower the age to 18 for gambling at a casino. I never understood that. At 18 you can play the lottery so why not a slot machine, the only thing I can think of is they serve drinks in the casino.
 
I got a DUI once...

After getting financially raped for over a year by the system...

I realized drinking laws had nothing to do with public safety....
 
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